Software Spotlight

Michael Bernzweig (00:03.121)

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of B2B SaaS success? Tired of sifting through endless noise to find actionable insights that actually move the needle?

Welcome to Software Spotlight, your weekly deep dive into the transformative world of Software-as-a-Service. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities where businesses find top tech consultants across the USA and Canada.

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Welcome to this week's edition of Software Spotlight. I'm your host, Michael Bernzweig, and joining us today from Pennsylvania, we have Bill Carlin. He's the founder of Racklify. And with that, Bill, welcome to the Software Spotlight.

Bill Carlin (00:21.902)
Yeah, thanks for having me on Michael. Real excited to be here and you know, talk to you and share a little bit about me and Racklify.

Michael Bernzweig (00:28.753)
Yeah, great. Now, and I know a lot of I can see from some of the questions that have come in from the audience prior to the episode and we'll see what comes in over the course of the episode that we have quite a few individuals at different businesses all around that are interested in the topic. So to start out with, I guess I wanted to ask you to give our audience a little bit of a peek behind the scenes as to.

who you are, your journey, and what Racklify is all about.

Bill Carlin (01:01.644)
Yeah, so I'll start with the spark nose version. My name is Bill. I'm the CMO of Racklify, but during my daytime, I am the COO of Shipmate Fulfillment, which is a third party logistics company. That means that we help small businesses store ship and organize their inventory. So Racklify was kind of born out of this journey of running a fulfillment center for 10 years.

where we saw a need in the market for sales outreach lead generation. And there was really no place where people could interact with fulfillment centers except for on LinkedIn. So you'd see these large chains of conversations appearing on LinkedIn where somebody would say, hey, I'm looking for 200 pallet locations in Houston.

Could somebody help me out? And like 150 warehouses will reply. So what we wanted to do was take our experience from running a 3PL and use that to build a platform that can help 3PLs connect with merchants. So that's kind of the spark notes of how we went from, you know, me running a warehouse to me deciding let's become a tech entrepreneur and start an online platform for warehouses.

Michael Bernzweig (02:27.653)
I love it. I love it. And it sounds like you've had quite a bit of background in the industry. So obviously you were the right person on the team to kind of fill that role. Now, as far as the organization itself, so can you tell me a little bit about the customers that might be using Racklify and what life was like before and after using the

solution for those organizations.

Bill Carlin (02:59.308)
Yeah, so at Racklify, we basically have two different types of customers, right? So we have the warehouse or 3PL, right? Which is kind of like the seller in a marketplace. So think of somebody offering, know, warehousing services, they have their rates, they're offering their space in their building. And then we also have the merchant, which would be like your standard Amazon seller, Shopify seller, maybe a small regional, you know,

omnichannel seller, right? So they have both physical retail and online retail. And these are the two sides of the market, right? And we're selling the both. So what we're doing is we're bringing on warehouses. We currently have about 3000 warehouses on our platform and we're giving them the ability to sell their excess space, kind of like a hot wire on our platform. So like I said before this, a lot of this was done online.

on LinkedIn, a lot of this was done with traditional consultants. And now we have a tech enabled platform that allows 3PLs to list their services, list their demand, list their capacity all in one place. And what we're doing is we're going out and we're doing a lot of marketing, a lot of ads, a lot of social media.

to attract brands to these warehouses. So we're signing up brands, having them fill out what we call an RFP, which is a request for proposal that allows warehouses to see what their needs are and determine whether they're a good fit and maybe send them a quote.

Michael Bernzweig (04:42.45)
I love it, I love it. And so it sounds like you're kind of filling a gap in the market in terms of helping these warehouses in a very unique way, as well as a lot of the sellers. you have Shopify and Amazon as a couple of the largest platforms, but for the sellers...

And you know, I myself have for many years up until recently owned a direct-to-consumer sporting goods retailer. So I understand that whole space. For the sellers, I think you're seeing a lot of transition over the last few years. The channel seems to really be compressing between the producers and the consumers. How is all of that affecting

you know, three PLs and that whole market and all of that. What are you seeing on your end?

Bill Carlin (05:42.222)
So, anecdotally, we're seeing a lot more foreign business, right? So you're seeing a lot of manufacturers from China reaching out directly. You see a lot of manufacturers from India. And then you also see people that are selling in smaller markets like maybe the UK or Australia or Japan, right? And they're expanding globally as well. So you're seeing a much, much more diverse

group of sellers in the US. It's not just your traditional white label importer anymore selling on Amazon, selling on Shopify. So

Michael Bernzweig (06:18.259)
So with this new breed of clients, what are the types of needs that they have that were different than the traditional e-comm retailer that may have just been selling on Amazon in years past?

Bill Carlin (06:35.926)
Yeah, so one of the biggest needs is a lot more handholding, right? So if you think about a US based customer, you're thinking about somebody that's familiar with the geographics of the United States, right? They're familiar with the typical way that business is done, right? So for example, I have a customer in the UK on the 3PL side.

He was really concerned about overnight shipping because if you think about the UK, it's just a small little island, right? And most things can get delivered the next day if you put them in the mail. So when he came on board, one of his first questions was, can we get to California in a day? I said to him, well, do you understand that California is like you shipping to Russia in a day? it's geographically, just, doesn't make sense. So, you know, you.

Michael Bernzweig (07:05.277)
Yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (07:20.563)
Right.

Bill Carlin (07:26.956)
You have these like very basic things that we all assume as people who've lived in America for a very long time and doing business with American companies very long time that are new and foreign ideas to international sellers. And with this new breed of international seller, a lot of times they don't understand the types of services, right? So they're not familiar with the U S post office, right? They're not familiar with some of the domestic

UPS FedEx services available and they're definitely not used to our regional carriers. So like I said, you're having to start at grand zero and kind of hold that hand as they begin to bring the goods into the US and kind of introduce them to the US logistics as a whole.

Michael Bernzweig (08:15.803)
make sense and and i think you know obviously if you look at it or even think back to the old days i mean a manufacturer would produce a product they would ship it to a distributor the distributor would break it down ship it to a retailer the retailer would ship it to a consumer and i think maybe we'll just call it what it is the amazon effect i think you amazon is really

squeeze that whole channel structure to drive as much cost out of the equation as possible. you really don't have distributors and retailers in the mix so much anymore. It's really the manufacturers, domestic or international.

And at this point, they're being forced to ship directly to consumers, which is not in their DNA. it sounds like there's a lot of other mechanics and logistics that they may not have been tooled for that they need.

Bill Carlin (09:20.384)
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is in my personal journey, right? I started in the whole importing retail space of, you know, selling goods to individual mom, pop retailer stores, right? The whole wholesale side of things and got pushed into selling e-commerce because that was the natural progression of things, right? Sears was closing down. Ames was closing down, right? All these big retailers of the nineties, early two thousands.

were starting to close and you had to move online. And now in days you see that compression going further where factories are importing their goods directly to Amazon, right? They go straight to FBA, straight out the door to the consumer. And you see it more and more. So like, for example, today with Racklify, about 40 % of our traffic is international. So a large portion of the people visiting our site are not US based companies.

they might be a company based in the UK or Ireland or Denmark, right? So this whole globalization of the supply chain has really shaken things up. And a lot of it has come with that compression that you're talking about.

Michael Bernzweig (10:34.159)
Interesting, interesting. So as far as the types of organizations that are working with Racklify versus the other business, is it more SMBs or enterprise level clients or international enterprise or what are you seeing?

Bill Carlin (10:55.476)
Yeah, so with Racklify, we're really seeing all different types of customers, especially customers that have difficult needs, right? So when we talk about difficult needs, we're talking about things like hazmat, right? Things like cold storage, right? Things that are a little harder to find in fulfillment, maybe building supplies. So

A lot of sellers that have needs that you can't just do a Google search and find somebody to do your apparel fulfillment are really coming to the platform and they're finding value. doesn't mean that we don't have people come for, you know, basic things like apparel or housewares, but the bulk of people that are getting a lot of value on the side are people with needs that are a little more untraditional, right? So you, you, you see a lot of that, with the fulfillment business, it's more.

small businesses, but with Racklify, we're seeing a wider breadth of the types of businesses reaching.

Michael Bernzweig (11:54.258)
So for our audience, because obviously some may or may not be familiar, can you kind of bullet point some of the specialty needs that a client might have that they would find on your platform?

Bill Carlin (12:08.406)
Yeah, so a lot of sellers are selling, you know, your typical stuff like you'll see on Amazon, you know, shirts, toasters, you know, things that pretty much anybody can handle and they can put in a box. But there's a lot of things that are regulated, right? So you got things like hazmat, is it corrosive? Is it chemical? Right? You got things like pharma and medical devices, things that you might need special licenses for, right? Then you have all different types of storage. So some

things like, let's say frozen food needs to go in a freezer, right? And other things like makeup might melt if you put it in 100 degree heat in the middle of Texas. So these sorts of goods have a special type of handling or requirement. Another thing that a lot of people don't realize is there's still a pretty good amount of retailers doing small boutique manufacturing type stuff.

So think about assembly, right? So like think like a display, like you see on the end cap at Walmart, a lot of that, the goods might come from China, but the display is being put together and assembled here in the US by a warehouse somewhere, right? So there's a lot of that light assembly, small manufacturing still going on here and some warehouses really specialize in that. So these are just a couple of examples of some of those unique and niche.

cases that are out there, but we've seen it all.

Michael Bernzweig (13:38.932)
So let me ask you, we have a pretty diverse audience listening to the podcast and I think you sit in a very, very unique position. So with all of the transitions that have happened and obviously you don't have to go far to hear of a retailer closing their doors, but of the ones that are still doing well and actually thriving, do you see any similarities or?

business models that seem to be, you know, helping organizations that have specific niches or specific types of operations that are doing well even in this environment.

Bill Carlin (14:23.662)
So whenever you're talking about retail, there's really two types that come to mind. The first is obviously things that are very niche, right? Specialty stores. Specialty stores always do well because they cater to a unique small pool of people that really value the ability to go in, see...

all those different goods in one place and shop. The other type of retailer that I'm seeing do very well in this environment, and this is good news for you and your audience, is retailers that have been updating their software and staying on top of the trends, right? So everybody talks about Omni-channel, and that's a big thing, but another big part is updating those systems that they're using, right? Making sure that they integrate with the newest

WMSs and technology, and that they're not using some enterprise system from 1988, right? So these companies that are advancing and they're updating their software, they're doing better because they plug in and fit more nicely and friendly into the current state of logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, and e-commerce, even if they don't have a huge online presence.

Michael Bernzweig (15:19.171)
Absolutely. Tech is a big difference.

Bill Carlin (15:41.298)
The fact that they fit nicely in that ecosystem makes them a good fit for sellers. And, you know, that can be a huge step up in this current environment.

Michael Bernzweig (15:50.566)
Yeah, and I think technology has always been a differentiator, but I think even more so today, it's absolutely just as relevant. the Software Oasis platform is really a hardcore group of the top tech consulting companies in the US and Canada that are really niche.

consulting companies providing very specialized services and solutions. So, you know, for retailers that need custom APIs, that need, you know, very intricate or special development, those are the kinds of organizations that they'll find on the platform. And, you they're all, all firms that we've, you know, over the years, verified and vetted to be sure that they are the best of the best. So I think that that's a really good.

good insight. I guess the other question is obviously AI is not only on the horizon, it's here. you know, between AI and automation, you know, reshaping the future of what's going on. How do you see that impacting this whole space?

Bill Carlin (17:08.268)
Yeah, I mean, AI is a, it's a blessing and a curse, right? Because when you have AI, you're able to make a lot of things really quick. And what that does is allows a lot of people who may have struggled with marketing, right? They may have struggled with packaging design to kind of level the playing field, right? So now nobody has any excuse for not having a good Amazon description, right?

AI has kind of democratized the ability to put out quality content. But on the same token, it's also kind of watered down the originality, right? So you see that some of the brands that are doing really, really well today are brands that have large personalities and they voice it well through their marketing, through their sales and through their processes. So as we see AI take over more and more of

you know, the descriptions you see on Amazon, the letters that people are writing to, you know, distributors, partners, things like that. There really is a huge place for, you know, personality and creativity.

Michael Bernzweig (18:21.297)
Makes a lot of sense, makes a lot of sense. So as you're working with different clients, what do you see in terms of resistance that you may typically encounter from companies who are transitioning from more of a traditional technology-driven sales process to this type of a platform?

Bill Carlin (18:45.474)
Yeah, I think the biggest resistance is the, as something that's traditionally been handled by consultants, it's been a long drawn out sales process. So somebody might be engaging with a handful of 3PLs for six months, even a year, right? Sending paperwork, documentation back and forth. And some of the resistance we've been seeing is that a lot of people

Michael Bernzweig (18:57.702)
Right.

Bill Carlin (19:15.33)
are reluctant to take that decision making and that into their own hands, right? So like on our platform, you can find 3000 plus warehouses. That's a lot of warehouses to look through and that can be daunting. But it also means that you're going to find your needs, right? You're going to find the warehouses that can handle your niche that might be located close to you might not be right can fill in gaps in your supply chain, which is

really good and we also give you all the data you need to make these choices and do so effectively. So what that does is it puts some of the onus on you as a merchant to go in and make decisions for yourself. So that's.

Michael Bernzweig (19:57.992)
Yes, you're really compressing the whole cycle. mean, you're really making it much more efficient, much quicker, much more relevant, and much easier to navigate.

Bill Carlin (20:09.974)
Yeah, I mean, that's the entire idea is to be able to get you in front of more warehouses in a shorter period of time so you can have more information, you can get more price sheets, and you can hopefully make a higher quality decision without having to go out and pay somebody and undergo some one year, two year process.

Michael Bernzweig (20:29.041)
Yeah, I think what you're doing is really very timely and relevant because at the end of the day, I think there was a time when a traditional sales process was not only expected, but it's just the way it was done. And I think today, I think this current generation is really looking to make decisions on their own.

do their own research and pull the trigger based on what they're seeing versus what they're being told.

Bill Carlin (20:59.694)
So something I think is really interesting about that is this idea partly came from some of these like real estate startups that we've been seeing. And I have friends, know, I'm a younger end of the millennial, right? That have bought houses that they've never seen before, right? They've just gone on a platform, found out they're moving to a new city and did some virtual walkthroughs and bought a house. And this is something you would have like,

thought was unheard of 10 years ago, right? The idea that somebody's just gonna buy a house they saw on the internet, but we see people doing it. And as technology gets better and better, and we're getting more and more of these tools, more of the large decisions we make in life, like applying for loans, right, are moving online. You're no longer going and sitting across from a bank teller interviewing three different banks and, you know, making that transaction. So these larger...

Michael Bernzweig (21:30.867)
Sure.

Bill Carlin (21:57.762)
life altering transactions are becoming more and more tech enabled. They're moving online. And shockingly, I think decision making is actually getting better because of the amount of information you can consume in such a short amount of time to help you make a better decision.

Michael Bernzweig (22:19.589)
And you know, think it obviously depends on the type of product or service. mean, you're sitting across from a guy who would have a hard time buying a pair of shoes online, but buying a car online, not a big deal. You know, it's definitely interesting. But so as you're working with different companies, or maybe if you were to kind of advise some of the listeners, what metrics should companies be?

Bill Carlin (22:29.358)
Hahaha.

Yeah!

Michael Bernzweig (22:47.247)
focusing on when evaluating the effectiveness of their sales cycle optimization efforts.

Bill Carlin (22:54.754)
Yeah, so whenever you're looking at optimizing your sales cycle, what I like to always think about is getting to the close, right? And some people do this in way too strict of a way where they're like, all I want to do is get a signed piece of paper, a yes. Well, there's ways to respectfully get the yes without getting off track. And what I recommend is that every time you're going to make contact, that you're making contact

with some goal or objective in mind, right? So way too many times I've been in the sales process with people selling software or goods or whatever, and they just wanna check in, right? These check-in calls, as they call them. And you don't really know what you're checking in for, right? You don't know what the objective of this call is, what the goal of this call is. And one of the things I would advise is to do less check-in and less follow-up.

Michael Bernzweig (23:35.858)
Thank

Michael Bernzweig (23:39.164)
Yeah.

Bill Carlin (23:52.17)
and more working towards a goal. Like, let's get enough information to get you pricing, or let's sit down and go through your needs and make sure that we set you up with the right solution, right? And taking these kind of approaches that every single call is going to result in some deliverable or objective that's gonna push that sales process ahead, right?

So the less calls you have about checking in and the more calls you have about, well, what can we get you that gets us closer to a close is gonna help you out. And this can be two, three calls. This can be six calls. This can be 10 calls. You can't really put a number on it. But when you're dealing with longer sales cycles and prolonged negotiation tables, right?

Having a goal with each call and sticking to that goal can be a great way to keep your sale on track and keep you on that straight line due close.

Michael Bernzweig (24:55.752)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. and maybe if you could walk our listeners through. So when did Racklify first come to market? Like how long has it been to market?

Bill Carlin (25:07.468)
Yeah, so back in July, we launched into beta. So when we launched into beta, our biggest goal was to just go out there, find 3PLs, find partners, and basically stock the shelves, right? Give consumers a good selection of 3PLs to choose from. So we set out with the goal of getting 500 warehouses on board. And as of January, I think, sixth, we've launched to the public, meaning we've taken down

some of our splash pages that were hiding our platform. You can now dive right in, you can start shopping, you can view different warehouses, the whole nine yards. And we started pivoting towards marketing to merchants, right? So now we're looking for both e-commerce sellers and retailers who are looking to work with warehouses. So we've kind of pivoted in that direction now in terms of our sales process.

Michael Bernzweig (26:04.061)
So it's really getting the word out to merchants is the focus now you've built the platform.

Bill Carlin (26:08.308)
Right, we built the platform, we stocked the platform. It's growing every day, we're adding more warehouses, we're adding more services. But at this point, it's about getting the word out and getting merchants to the platform and providing value to the merchants.

Michael Bernzweig (26:23.089)
So could you give us a little bit of a roadmap as to where you see the platform heading? what are the next things on the wish list?

Bill Carlin (26:35.374)
Yeah, so I have a couple of surprises up my sleeve that I don't want to let them all out. But what I will say is that right now the platform is focused on warehousing, right? It's focused on 3PLs. Right now we are in the middle of pivoting towards marketing towards merchants. But our next big focus and the next area we're going to be looking at.

Michael Bernzweig (26:41.682)
Sure.

Bill Carlin (27:02.762)
is those auxiliary services, right? So we're gonna wanna be bringing on partners that manage transportation, right? Maybe manage WMSs, maybe do some real estate, right? All these other things that you need to successfully run an e-commerce business. We're gonna try to build out those partnerships, yep, and build out those listings on the marketplace as well.

Michael Bernzweig (27:20.689)
Yeah, I that makes a lot of sense. I mean it's really natural.

Michael Bernzweig (27:28.347)
I love it, I love it, and I think that's natural evolution. So I guess, you know, in wrapping up, what advice would you give to companies still operating with really more of a traditional lengthy sales cycle, you know, who want to modernize their approach? You know, maybe some of those three PLs.

Bill Carlin (27:49.378)
Yeah, I think the two biggest things I would say is one technology, right? So every day technology is getting better, right? Even if you went and looked at a piece of software three years ago and said, this isn't for me, they may have changed things, they may have updated things. It's important to know what is available to you in terms of tools. So software is a huge piece of getting that close.

And the second thing I would say, especially for the three PLs and for the warehouses is to really dive into those needs, right? It sounds cliche, but every single business that's out there looking for a warehouse is looking for a warehouse for one of a array of reasons. And those reasons usually are related to past performance of their other warehouse or

they're a new brand just getting started. So it's pretty easy to find out what the pain points are, what are the things that are holding them up and addressing those points. So like I said, it's cliche, but really pulling back those layers and finding the needs and finding the pain points is going to get you the most success. Even if these merchants don't really want to say exactly why they're leaving their last provider.

Michael Bernzweig (29:16.241)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, obviously it's a journey for both three PLs, manufacturers and retailers, you know, navigating some interesting times presently and ahead. So I think it's, it's interesting and obviously a lot of additional value that you're, you're providing on all ends. As, as we approach,

the post-holiday madness. Any footnotes or takeaways from this last holiday season that you found interesting?

Bill Carlin (29:52.654)
So one of the biggest things I saw this holiday season was everybody expects the volume, right? Everybody sees the carrier madness. It happens every year, but returns were really taking another step forward this year, right? So you now see a lot of 3PLs popping up that just handle returns.

So this is like a new emerging specialization in the market. And as we see more and more returns every holiday season, the returns piece of the puzzle is becoming more and more important. So in terms of the holiday, that would be my big takeaway is that the returns problem is here to stay. And we're starting to see people pivot towards addressing that problem, which is going to be good for the market overall.

but it's definitely a trend you wanna watch.

Michael Bernzweig (30:49.884)
Interesting. Well, I really appreciate this deep dive. I think it's been very helpful for our audience and we'll leave a link in the show notes for anybody that would like to reach out to you. Joining us from Pennsylvania, Bill Carlin over at Racklify. Thanks for joining us on the Software Spotlight this week.

Bill Carlin (31:07.47)
Yeah, thanks for having me on. was a blast.